Stories by Dorian Hargrove

Two San Diego residents included in spate of lawsuits over file sharing

The company that owns the rights to Academy Award-winning movie Dallas Buyers Club is continuing to target online pirates who have downloaded and shared the movie via peer-to-peer filing websites. In recent months, Dallas Buyers ...

Crime Desire has returned from a tour with fellow cave-dwelling hardcore outfit Head Wound City, which features members of the Locust, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the Blood Brothers. Crime Desire had been on quasi-hiatus since ...

Libraries prohibit people from bringing in their voluminous possessions

Over the course of several months, librarians at Mission Valley, San Ysidro, and downtown libraries have grappled with the problem of some patrons bringing large carts inside. Staff say the carts, often as high as ...

A former dancer at Goldfingers Gentlemen’s Club on Miramar Road has filed a class-action lawsuit faulting her ex-employer of failing to pay a living wage. It is the second class-action lawsuit filed against strip clubs ...

A lawsuit alleging that administrators and faculty at the University of San Diego dissuaded a female law student from reporting a rape to police will move forward, said superior court judge Joel Pressman in a ...

For five months in 2014, Lincoln High School student Alexis Guzman didn’t have to walk the three miles from his parents’ National City apartment to school. More importantly, he didn’t have to walk the three ...

Administrators at the University of California San Diego failed to properly investigate sexual assault allegations against a male student and increased sanctions against him for appealing their decision, ruled superior court judge Joel Pressman on ...

Members of a Shriners community located near Mount Laguna, where cabins and buildings were destroyed in the 2013 Chariot Fire, have added the Chrysler Group to the list of entities it is suing for damages. ...

According to documents filed in federal court, two men, Thomas Ferguson of La Mesa and Duane Bowen of Chula Vista, are responsible for a spate of bank robberies in San Diego and Riverside counties. Also, ...

Pacific Beach resident Ian Anderson has filed a lawsuit against the City of San Diego and the police department over the March 15, 2015, police shooting that killed Anderson's six-year-old pit bull, Burberry. On that ...

Three women arrested during the October 2011 police raids on Occupy San Diego protesters and left in police vans for up to six hours without access to restrooms continue their legal fight with the city. ...

In a class-action lawsuit filed June 22 against Kearny Mesa strip joint Cheetahs, a former dancer says the club should be paying the talent a minimum wage. Jasmine Hayes, who worked at the club for ...

On June 24, a former doctor who had been stripped of his license in 1995 admitted to issuing medical marijuana recommendations to patients under a false name. Nelson Leone, owner of Green Cross Evaluations, pled ...

Seeing Wild Wild Wets live is more of an experience than a musical performance. The psychedelic rock group, which describes their sound as a post-punk, krautrock version of Velvet Underground, has a full-time projectionist in ...

Mayor Kevin Faulconer is going forward with plans to release an expedited environmental review of a new stadium for the San Diego Chargers, the first step before sending the item to a public vote in ...

On June 16, the Customs and Border Protection division of Homeland Security announced it was awarding a sole source, no-bid contract to Vigilant Solutions for automated license-plate readers to be used by Border Patrol agents ...

The beef between attorney Cory Briggs and city attorney Jan Goldsmith has lasted years. It was furthered on the morning of May 29, when San Diego superior court judge Gregory Pollack issued Briggs a stern, ...

The owner of a towing company seems to be hampering a City of San Diego Ethics Commission investigation into an alleged campaign-fund-laundering scheme. The alleged improprieties occurred during 2012's mayoral election. During that time, according ...

Civic San Diego, the city-owned nonprofit tasked with winding down San Diego’s redevelopment agency and permitting decisions in downtown, needs more money. The nonprofit, which was formed in 2013 from the ashes of the Centre ...

Paperwork and newspapers don't vanish — but conversations conveniently do

On Friday, May 29, superior court judge Gregory Pollack handed environmental attorney Cory Briggs both a victory and a warning. Pollack complimented Briggs for his work in defeating a proposal to impose new taxes on ...

How much the police department spends on lap dances is none of our business.

On April 24, 2014, a Hispanic female exotic dancer walked across the neon-lit room inside Cheetahs Gentlemen’s Club dressed in black lingerie. According to an undercover officer from the San Diego Police Department’s vice unit ...

The business owners and small group of residents who opposed turning University Avenue into a more pedestrian-friendly street appear to have won over planners of the San Diego Association of Governments. During a June 5 ...

Over the course of several years, San Diego city attorney Jan Goldsmith has accused environmental lawyer Cory Briggs of filing frivolous lawsuits and of conflicts of interest involving his wife's former employer. Now, attorneys for ...

Attorneys for a man who suffered permanent brain damage after being repeatedly stunned by a sheriff deputy's taser are suing the County of San Diego, two deputies, and sheriff William Gore for failing to properly ...

It took four hours for City of San Diego Public Utilities Department workers to respond to a water-line break at a La Jolla business in September 2014. During that four-hour window, amid numerous calls and ...

After six years of fighting, some residents of Carmel Valley got what they wanted on May 21: a scaled-down version of Los Angeles–based Kilroy Realty's mixed-use project, One Paseo. Moments before a city-council hearing to ...

When Dave Madden sprung back to life, a priest was reading him his last rites...

When Dave Madden, drummer for indie-pop group Kingdom of Lights, sprung back to life after his heart stopped beating from organ failure, a priest was reading him his last rites. It was then that Madden ...

At a May 18 hearing, San Diego's city councilmembers postponed a decision on whether to rescind their approval of Kilroy Realty's 1.45-million-square-foot mixed-use project, One Paseo, or send it to the ballot at taxpayer cost. ...

In a May 15 ruling, San Diego Superior Court judge Joel Wohlfeil denied a motion from the City of San Diego to impose sanctions on environmental attorney Cory Briggs for filing a frivolous action accusing ...

Could be why the city ordered an environmental impact report. Seriously.

The proposal to ban plastic bags in the City of San Diego is moving forward but not before the city conducts an environmental impact report. According to a city notice, San Diego's Planning Department is ...

A few years have passed since the one-time drummer for Black Heart Procession and Modest Mouse, and current drummer of the Shins and Cold War Kids, Joe Plummer, considered San Diego his part-time home. Despite ...

On May 13, city planners will update a city-council committee on the long-delayed Community Plan Updates. The gist: the 12 communities’ plans slated for revision in 2008 will have to wait longer than expected. Over ...

Firefighter sues for not being allowed to review test and grading criteria

A San Diego firefighter who has accused the department of racial discrimination and harassment has filed a new complaint against the city and department for refusing to provide testing materials for a captain's exam that ...

Rachel Smith purchased her Burlingame home in 2007 after receiving an inheritance. The 70-year-old retired high school teacher fell in love with the five-bedroom three-bath, 2996-square-foot historical Craftsman home built in 1912. It was more ...

Call it a tax, a surcharge, or "utility user taxes," it doesn't matter: the 3 percent electricity tax and .03 percent gas tax that San Diego Gas and Electric collects from customers and later remits ...

Woman in car trapped in Zombie Walk sues for not requiring parade permit

The City of San Diego failed to protect motorists and the hundreds of wannabe zombies during last year's Zombie Walk. The city also failed to obtain the permits required for any parade or procession with ...

The cost incurred by the City of San Diego over the proposed mixed-use development in Carmel Valley, One Paseo, is increasing. The city has been slapped with a third lawsuit over the now-overturned development. On ...

Adding Sarichia Cacciatore's name to the list of members of San Diegans for Open Government available for depositions in the lawsuit over the hotel tax was a costly error by the group's attorney — and ...

Pot dispensary claims their above-board dealings with sheriff led to bust

Eighteen members of a medical marijuana collective are suing San Diego County and the sheriff's department for false arrest and for conducting an illegal search and seizure of marijuana plants in September of 2014. The ...

For years, the San Diego County Office of Education, the agency responsible for overseeing and allocating funding for 35 school districts in San Diego County, has turned to legal firm Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz ...

On Tuesday, April 21, San Diego city councilmembers are expected to approve a settlement offer in the amount of $225,000 to a cyclist who sued over the city's inadequate and defective bike lanes. The lawsuit, ...

Agency’s backers seek less oversight while one of their boardmembers sues

The Downtown San Diego Partnership, a nonprofit business-minded organization, is stepping up its defense of Civic San Diego, the private nonprofit in charge of permitting in select neighborhoods and handling redevelopment functions throughout the city. ...

On April 8, the state Assembly's Committee on Labor and Employment moved forward a bill authored by San Diego's former labor leader and current assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez that requires sports teams to pay fair wages ...